GREENIT

Changing Weather

Making is the word that best describes the work and poetics of Simone Cametti.

Action is the best term to describe Simone Cametti’s work and thought.

His art work is the product of a journey that was created through actions, gestures and challenges that follow the art work in the process of creating it. Cametti is interested in documenting the technical modality and the material that creates the art work. Once the art work is completed, it creates the possibility to test its physical resistance. Polished marble, a candle with an uncertain shape or a picture of a landscape, is what the artist wants and cares about. It’s a documentation of the physical effort that it takes to create and finish an art work. Without the complexity of this initial strain the artist couldn’t erase the traces of this effort in the final fase. The final landscapes are lovely postcards, with bright and exciting colors. The center of his work is in the power of Nature.

Greenit, is a series of big shoots taken in autumn on the hills of the National Park of Gran Sasso that reveal incredible landscapes in which the hill that is in the foreground is always a soft green. It may appear to be a normal picture, a piece of a hill with some grass on a dry piece of land. For every picture there is a video that reveals the real motive and idea of the project that is invisible at first glance: an intervention that kept the artist occupied for many hours, painting the ground physically with a toxic paint made for plants (the name of the paint is the name used for the art show). A long performative action that pushes the limits of the seasons and defines the piece of land, taking a whole day to create something that now could be created just by an easy click and by knowing the abc’s of digital touchup programs.

In a time where the infinite ways of technology allow us to correct or delete images, Cametti chooses to modify Nature manually, taking the time he needs without any short cuts. Cambiare tempo, apart form modifying the characteristics of seasons, the weather and colors, is an invitation to proceed with slow steps, with responsibility. Changing it, inverting it and then, catching your breath. There is no need to use a thousand images to explain everything. Cametti just needs one to prove this very long process of creating art work.

Claudio Libero Pisano, Greenit 2015, Francesca Antonini Arte Contemporanea, Rome